Jose Guadalupe Galvan

At 4:30 on Christmas morning in 2006, Reynaldo Flores found his 27-year-old housemate tearing up photographs of the housemate's girlfriend, as well as letters from her, and stuffing blood-stained clothing into plastic garbage bags.

Flores later told police that his housemate, Jose Guadalupe Galvan, said "he had to get out of town because he had killed his girlfriend."

A half-hour later, Flores and another friend drove Galvan to Midway Airport, and Galvan bought a one-way ticket to Cancun, Mexico, taking off at 8:30 that morning. Authorities determined that Galvan's mother resides in Jalisco, Mexico, and he may have fled there.

A half-hour after Galvan's flight left that Christmas morning, in Swallow Cliff Woods in the Cook County Forest Preserve, a man walking his dog came across the partially dressed body of Galvan's girlfriend, Juana Ornelas. She had been strangled and beaten to death.

Cook County and Justice Department officials last year asked the Mexican government to issue an arrest warrant for Galvan. That was done earlier this year, but Galvan — a tall, rail-thin construction worker who used at least three aliases — has not been apprehended.